How To Set Up a Sideblog The Smart Way

Did you notice the sideblog in the sidebar where I have been featuring my favorite links? Would you like to know how I did it?

Running a mini blog (also called asides) alongside the main blog is not really a new idea, people have been doing it since the dawn of blogging. But the credit for making me give serious thought to sideblogging goes to Michael at Pro Blog Design. check out his detailed post on the pros and cons of using a sideblog.
How do I feature links on my sideblog?

I do things in straightforward ways. While I could use a plugin or hack my WordPress code to set up a sideblog, these methods failed to impress me. I was looking for the simplest way to set up a mini blog as well as the easiest way to post links to it.

Guess what came to my rescue? Yep, RSS.

Here’s step by step how you can do it too (WordPress only).

1. Go to your del.icio.us page and create a special new tag named after your blog. (e.g. bloggingbits)2. Copy the URL of your newly created tag.3. Log into your FeedBurner account, and paste the URL in the feed burning form to burn your feed.4. Go to Publicize > BuzzBoost, and activate the service. Set the options as you like.5. Copy the code and paste it in your sidebar.php or a sidebar widget where you want your sideblog to appear.

Done!

How to post to your new sideblog with one click

6. Now download and install del.icio.us extension for Firefox.7. If you want to save a page to your sideblog, click on the tag button on Firefox toolbar, write a short comment in description box, enter the special tag you created earlier along with other tags, and save.

Easy, eh?

Want the link to appear as soon as you saved it? Ping FeedBurner after you post a new link, and bookmark the pinged link for one click pinging later.

Well, if you want to post news and updates to your sideblog, you can’t do it with this method. Your readers can’t comment on any of the links either. But I don’t see why anyone would need such features. You sure don’t want to make an important announcement in an obscure corner of your sidebar. And you certainly want your readers to comment on the original links rather than on your mini entry.

Your thoughts?

Are you for or against having a sideblog, and do you find the above technique better than other methods?

41 comments so far and counting

Thanks Michael. The main turn-off for me with other methods was the difficulty of adding new links. With self-hosted asides, for example, you have to launch your post editor in a separate window, copy the URL and title, and add other details. Now that’s too much hassle for posting a link.

Nonetheless, self-hosted sideblog has its own benefits. The major one being free search engine traffic that the asides category attracts.

If you are actually displaying your links from Delicious (you created a new tag in Delicious and you got Feedburner to pull links from that tag URL, didn’t you?), why don’t you do it directly from Delicious?

You can use the linkrolls (http://del.icio.us/help/linkrolls) function in Delicious to display a user-specified number of items from your recent bookmarks. You can set the items to appear chronologically, or alphabetically. And you can also set it to only display items tagged with a specific tag, such as in your case, “bloggingbits”.

When you’re done, just copy the javascript and paste it anywhere you like

[quote comment="1179"]Haha, you rendered my whole post useless. There is always an easier way to do everything.

Replaced the FeedBurner code with delicious code. It looks much nicer now Thanks for the tip.[/quote]

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean your post was useless. I was just wondering why didn’t you use the easier and more direct method. I thought perhaps there were some benefits of pulling those feeds with Feedburner?

[quote comment="1207"]I’m sorry, I didn’t mean your post was useless. I was just wondering why didn’t you use the easier and more direct method. I thought perhaps there were some benefits of pulling those feeds with Feedburner? :D[/quote]

Nah, you don’t have to be sorry for making a helpful comment.

[quote comment="1225"]Nice! I’m loving all the different ways of doing this.
When I have some time to play with I’m going to check out a few of the methods (Tumblr, Del.icio.us, WP loop).[/quote]

I wish I had many blogs where I could experiment with all the great plugins and techniques and themes to my heart’s content.

kristarella, sorry your comment was blocked by Akismet. I just checked the list and de-spammed your comment.

I already use EasyPHP on my computer to play around with scripts, but what I meant was that I want to use all the cool plugins and themes in real time, on different blogs. I know, it’s wishful thinking.

I’ve added ‘reply’ feature with Quoter WordPress Plugin. It’s a nice plugin that encourages conversations among the readers and creates an overall community feel.

Oh, nice one! Between you and MM and pelf, obviously a sideblog is going to be the new essential accessory for a sidebar. What I like most about this simple & elegant idea is that, once it’s set up, the update is as easy as tagging a bookmark in del.icio.us. Very nice, indeed.

[quote comment="1330"]Are you going to start one too?[/quote] Yep, you’ve sold me on the idea, Mohsin! Not for Domestik Goddess, where the sidebars are pretty full now, but definitely something I’m looking at for our beekeepers’ group blog: a news round-up sideblog could be a great service to readers there, don’t you think?

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